Red
by LadyLevi
Summary: And once a year, every year, she puts on a red dress and dances -And yeah, maybe she likes the guy, like, picket fence like, but that doesn’t mean she has to be a pussy about it- ROMY-ish, kinda, if it died and was resseructed as an emo fish. Rogue-centic


Red

And once a year, every year, she puts on a red dress and dances (And yeah, maybe she likes the guy, like, picket fence like, but that doesn't mean she has to be a pussy about it)

Disclaimer- Would you like me to show you my Sailor Moon pic's? Mediocre at best sweets. Meaning, does not own.

Notes- Because Everything Always was nowhere near finished.

Warnings- Swearing

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She can pirouette like nobody's business

She can stand on her tippy toes and jump and spin and turn, and, when her feet plant at perfect angles on the ground, she can remember why she doesn't want to be a dancer. She takes one step feet splayed arms aloft and prepares for the jump that could save a life. It starts with a spin, fast and uncontrolled, then spirals into fast steps on her toes and then something –_a leap of faith-_ that should have by all rights killed her.

'Cause she trusted him, fucking trusted him and _he didn't let her down._

She pauses on her knees, head bent, hand's on chest and in a swift movement spreads her arms –_wings- _and maybe learns to fly. She lands on her stomach again, wiggles like a dying bird and takes off, flipping on to one foot, one toe and running through positions and steps like a bat outta hell.

And if it's hell, it smells like a smoke, a long hard drink and a deck of playing cards

Oh, and the swamp, can't forget the swamp.

This just keeps getting harder, pretending like- no, not pretending, _playing_ like she has a royal flush when all she has is two fours and a lot riding on her bluff. Playing like what happens to him still doesn't matter to her or that damn heart she still can't find a place to put.

Hell knows between her legs wasn't safe enough

And those same legs, the ones he'd wormed his way between, stretching an already too full heart, gleam and strain under her stupid red dress. She stands at a point too high to fall from and holds her head higher, her hands firmer on the right side of her pelvis and takes a balanced step forward.

With her hair tied back, she walks slowly from edge to edge of her makeshift dance floor. Testing each corner and boundary, filling each corner to capacity and taking it all back again. Four times to four corners and a low bow to each queen she meets there.

Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, Clubs

And yeah, she's taped all the queens from a pack of cards he may-or-may-not have given her to the corners of a room she may-or-may-not be using as some sort of quasi- danger room session for exploring her feelings. And yeah, maybe this is stupid but it's what she does every year because fuck knows that out in the real world she can't do this. _Be _likethis.

Not pathetic at all

To be fair though this _love thing_ is all incredibly new to her

At least, not feeling immensely guilty for it anyway

Before now, (with her adamant belief in everything always and her _stupid _attempts to find something to believe in) she's just felt so wrong about loving anything or feeling that, god, maybe she deserved to be more than less then shit some days.

Or that maybe, someone's _suicidal _enough to love her back

Which does make her feel shitty because she can't help but wonder if she's taking his options away. Even he needs something other than his hand.

(No matter how much he says he doesn't care as long as he can watch her walk or fight or something else he finds erotic and she thinks is stupid)

But, that's a thought for next year, in another shimmering red dress, maybe with a video camera or something so she can tape it and show everyone that she does actually experience emotions other than anger.

(Mostly because prides a sin and not in fact one she recognises often)

Or not

'Cause though she's not talking, she's hurting so much and pouring so much out that she can barely wonder how she kept this in for a year. And beyond that, how she'll keep it in for another.

And she leaps

One leap for each person she's trying to love

Well okay, man. If she leaped for everyone she tried to love she'd never stop

And you see that's the rub right there. She has too much love and not enough people to show.

Oh sure, she has _friends. _Ish. On every second Tuesday. And family, as long as she hasn't shoved them off a cliff or stabbed them in the back by absorbing their life force and using it to resurrect a mummy-dude heel bent on total control of the universe, _ever_-

Or something

God, this admitting thing is hard.

And she guesses she has _him _(or it, or the thing from the swamp, or _oh my god, do yah have an off button or somethin'?) _to thank for this ridiculously hopeful feeling her chest and the blood in the toes of her shoes. If she'd known he was gonna be this much trouble she'd never have botheres with him. Which, okay, is a blatant line 'cause the boy was practically tailor made for her crazy and, quite frankly, she'd probably have found a way to meet him, but god, she needs some sorta dignity. She's running low as is.

So she holds, and waits and waits and waits for some epiphany to hit and tell her that it's okay to feel like this, that it's okay to want something more than a hostile friendship with the one man who's never left her. That it's okay to blur that line. That fuck, they're all so blurry anyway who cares if you pour on the kerosene and light a match.

For a moment all the perfect tension and the bold lines of a war torn body fade, leaving a worn out 23 year old in its place. One with fewer choices than ever about who to be and more riding on that choice. Balancing herself on a ledge between yin and yang. Balancing herself between what she could be and what she should be.

And so her epiphany comes

And in a rush of whirls and kicks that slam her knees near her head and will hurt like fuck later she moves through a series of movements so breath taking a year worth of pent up emotion is drained.

She turns, bows so her leg spreads to the side and it kinda looks like she's half doing the splits towards a queen in the corner.

And yeah, maybe she likes the guy, like, picket fence like, but that doesn't mean she has to be a pussy about it. And yeah, maybe the walls are all closing in and the sea is rising and hell, dear old Apocalypse has risen a couple centuries early but she's in love dammit.

And she damn well plans to stay there.

--

Gimme yah grog

Ugh


End file.
